Friday, 22 July 2016

Memoriam - The Hellfire Demos

MEMORIAM - The Hellfire Demos 7"EP 2016

A new band formed by members
of Benediction and Bolt Thrower?? That sounded way too intriguing, almost
unreal to be true haha! But I had to check it, I had to have this seven inch
vinyl! Memoriam comes with two songs set called “The Hellfire Demos” and
musically delivers death metal that you could easily foresee. It’s a
combination of both legendary bands, but with the strongest accent placed on
the war machine that Bolt Thrower is, with their characteristic rhythm,
heaviness, melody and even with the military concept. I honestly don’t know how
did they start Memoriam and if both Benediction and Bolt Thrower are busy these
days, or not? Maybe they’re not, so this is why some of these guys started new
thing. Whatever… it’s just always nice to hear some new tunes from them!

But at the first listen my
reactions was like “OK, it sounds good, but I expected more, to be honest”. I
felt like these songs are not as good as the last albums from Benediction and
Bolt Thrower and I was missing something there. Maybe my expectations were just
too high? I don’t know. Anyway, after some spins I started to like this EP
more. It’s very solid, well played old school death metal, with a lot of nice,
heavy riffs, some melodic leads, I like the sound it has… everything is in the
right place and “War Rages On” is the better of the two songs.

Obviously record labels had to
sign Memoriam quickly, as this will be an easy sale for them. Nuclear Blast
signed the band, so we can all wait for the debut album now. Good. I hope it
will crush, but I will not tolerate mediocrity from these experienced
musicians. By the way, Memoriam brings Andrew Whale back to the scene. You may
remember this man, as he was drumming on all early Bolt Thrower records! You
can hardly recognize him on the photo though haha!